Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust
by CharmingNotDarling
Summary: Against your better judgment, and the odds that have never been in your favor, you've lost your heart to him and you refused to stand aside and watch him fall.
1. Chapter 1

Ashes to Ashes

Part One

**A/N: If Sleeves Stained Red had a prologue this would be it. That being said they are companion pieces (a term I rather dislike) but they do not necessarily rely on each other for completion. This presents itself in two parts and is just a little insight into what consumed them the night after Red John died and the motivation behind the actions that follow after. Sleeves Stained Red has a final chapter to go but I couldn't concentrate until this was done. I hope you enjoy…**

Over the years you've played many a leading role in this tragic performance of sinister brooding and self loathing. This time it's taken the better part of the day for the sifting of the Pacific sands to lull you back to the present. You watch the red rimmed horizon bleed into the dark waters until the golden sphere is swallowed whole and the warm autumn breeze loses its gusto.

Yet you can't seem to remember exactly when your current curtain call came to be. The moments and hours have all ceased to exist.

You remember the screaming, the shots and the blood, none of them yours. You remember the need to flee, stronger and heavier than anything else you've ever felt before. You remember the anger, the defeat and the undeniable weight of indifference pressing you further and further away.

You followed through on a promise which in turn caused you to break another. It's ironic how in the end the honor of the woman you once loved with validated by the only other woman, the only other person, you've ever held in equal accord.

You remember her face, the look in her eyes, it was that of nothing you've ever seen in her enchanting gaze before. There were demands, threats, and yet in the end it was the gentle whisper laced in desperation that begged you to oblige.

Even with your acceptance she's insisted on using force as well.

She wanted you safe, and promised to bring you justice but wouldn't settle for half. There would be no trial only death just as long as you heeded her words and remained behind the heavily armed wall her people could provide.

You remember hating her in that instant. How could she expect you to come this far and simply stand aside? Even now you refuse to allow the answer you know to be the truth, settle within the confines of your conscience.

Nothing else in your life was supposed to matter. Every single one of them was supposed to be nothing but a pawn, a selfless soldier whose motives you could manipulate to suite your cause. You weren't expecting her heart to be so soft or her mind so strong. She saw you for what you really were and embraced you anyway. With the faith of a believer who feels that anything can be healed with a little love and a few heavenly prayers.

She knew your cause would take you to the edge of your life, so in turn she made you a cause of her own. Mirroring your devotion and willingness to sacrifice everything you are to bring the promises you've made to life.

And now that you've finally taken the moment to reflect, now that the embers of anger and hatred have smoldered and burned to ash, you realize she is the only person you know to take hold of a cause with a gripe anywhere close to that of your own.

But what of her motives?

Love fired the fuel of your own motivation, revenge for the lives you held dearer than your own. You could stand to defend she knows nothing of these emotions but you know instantly that is a lie. Perhaps her cause was not created in the fiery depths of love grown and tended from youth, but in the steady ebb and flow of patients and compassion. She feels for you now, deeply at times. Those feelings are not what initiated her devotion but have perhaps become the reason she continues to walk the path you lace in deflection.

She's made sacrifices of monumental proportions to ensure your quest could continue and you repay her every selfless act with a rejection so instant you can't remember its birth….

And you know there's a decade's worth of emotion hiding behind everyone of your carless actions.

There's a chill that drags you once again to the present. The moon is high and nearly full, the tide reaching far enough for the salty spray to coat your skin.

Your mind turns again to the promises you've made, and to the woman whose actions have ended your decade long struggle. She's promised you peace and all you've brought her is despair. You owe her everything and have offered nothing but lies. But what you offer and what you feel have always been your greatest inner conflict.

How could you come to need one woman while avenging the life of another?

You turn and take in the empty angles of your house, not yours anymore, not after today. This is a chapter of your life that needs to commence. You knew the moment you arrived you would be coming and going for the last time.

After all, where else would you go? There's nothing left for you here. You've made peace with your demons, with the help of the only person who could carry out your actions with a dedication stemmed from your own motivation.

Because she has no idea how much you've come to need her, and you fear all the lies and deception will only hinder your hold on her acceptance. She deserves the truth, but she also needs to accept that the lies are the reason she's lived to look this day in the face. How could you be expected to accept your own feelings and deny them all at once?

So you painted every lie in the conflicting shades of truth, telling yourself her safety was worth her sadness.

White lies were created to enforce the greater good after all.

You turn to take the path that will lead you home, not to this house but back to the city and everything you've left behind. Before you go, you slip the simple gold symbol of love and devotion from your hand. In the most recent years it's lived a double life on your finger, a symbol of your dedication and perhaps defiance, a reminder to all who would take notice that you planned to follow through.

And if you hope to return tomorrow and mend broken fences, it's best to go prepared to prove your intentions.

You let it gently slip from your fingers to the shore line below. The shifting sands of the ocean take a few tentative swipes before dragging it out to sea. You feel oddly complete, weightless and yet somewhat solid.

Because Red John is dead. And for once there's no longer a need for protection brought on by deceit.


	2. Chapter 2

Dust to Dust

Part two

**A/N: This second part turned out a little differently than I had originally planned. In the end I hope it makes as much sense to you as it did to me. **

You're not completely sure what wakes you, or if you were actually asleep at all. You've passed the point of common sense somewhere within these darkest hours of the night. They should be hours saved for the blissful peace of slumber, you know there's nothing to fear in a darkness that brings about glistening stars and gentle dreams.

And yet sleep refuses to claim you.

You close your eyes and work your way through every choice you've made over the last twenty-four hours and you find yourself filled with more remorse than affirmation.

They were decisions based on laws that govern both your chosen career path and your heart. So how is it you feel in doing what you know is right you've also done an even greater wrong.

As an officer of the law you could not let him follow through so as a woman you've in turn forced yourself to watch him walk away.

It's a rarity for you to ask anything of anyone. You've made your choices and followed your faith; you've done what's right by everyone who has ever been important to you. Even when you know the repercussions of those actions will not be heeded with grateful hearts.

You know you're the only solid relationship left in his life. You've been there for him, always. Like the pull of the moon on the oceans, no matter the distance or time between you, you always seem to find each other. Your lives like the push of the tides on the sands, his needs always seem to demand and retreat with a consistency you've come to rely on.

Even if he regularly leaves you drowning in the complexity of what he leaves unsaid.

So when all your anger and demands ran dry, the fear took over and slowly became something much more solid, something more like desperation. In the end you crossed a line, broke a promise to yourself and begged him to stay behind. And when your guarantee of justice was not enough to smolder a need driven by the heat of a decade long revenge you took advantage of the fact that you're important to him.

Because you know what these horrible emotions do to people. You've witnessed and experienced them first hand. You know the sour taste of revenge does not vanish with death but settles within the palate. It's overly sweet and yet bitter, turning every other sensation to ash on our tongue. It does not dissipate but lingers to the point of insanity. Because in the end, when justice has been served, you're left with nothing but memories and the shell of satisfaction.

You above everyone else know what you've asked of him, and more importantly in the end, demanded of him. And if your own guilt wasn't enough to banish all hope, the look in his eyes when he walked away was darker than the ebony shades of night. His emotional retreat was followed not long after by the physical one.

And you were left, as you always are, in the wake of everything he leaves unsaid.

There's a touch of comedy in this tragedy because the span of your entire relationship has revolved around a cause that, after today, no longer exists. You'd like to think that after all you've been through together he'd have a reason to stay. That all your devotion would help awaken a need him in to have a home again, a place with a purpose and people who know and need him.

And more importantly an understanding of what you couldn't let him do. Because against your better judgment, and the odds that have never been in your favor, you've lost your heart to him and you refused to stand aside and watch him fall.

How can there not be room in his heart for you?

You've been the only kink in the life line of his dedication. Your life is the only one he's ever put above his cause. There's been reluctance of course, because truth be told you know he's both angered and annoyed that the need to have you close has caused a need to keep you near. Unfortunately in the end it would seem neither of those needs was great enough to take root and grow into something a tad more solid.

You watch the night fade as the dawn slowly creeps towards the skyline. The air has gone gray around you forcing you to recognize your day will begin and you will leave another sleepless night behind you.

You gently roll the cool comforting stones of your rosary between your fingers. Every decade has been subject to his name over the years, your prayers consist more of a longing for his safe keeping than they ever have for your own.

And you're the one who carries the gun.

And you know no matter what you tell yourself, or anyone else who will listen, you will spend a few heartbreaking moments of every day he is gone wondering if he'll return. Wondering if you could possibly mean enough to deserve more than just a hateful parting glance. Because if he should understand anything it's that your motives have always been pure and your intentions were always to follow through.

You know what you asked of him, you know his anger is justifiable and his leaving equally so, you just wish he would have been able to see what you've done for him for what it truly was. You gave him justice and the right to keep his freedom, redemption for his wife and daughter and the chance to perhaps find that happiness again.

You were meant to free his pain, but not replace it with your own.

And yet you have no anger left in you, which should come as somewhat of a surprise. You've given up everything you could have been to hold his hand and walk his proverbial path of revenge only to be cast aside as if your motives were corrupt as a pose to sincere. So you're left only with an emotion too strong and razor sharp for you to fully understand.

And now that the dust has settled, now that the war is finally over and the heavy cloak of fear has been lifted, you can come to see how very little he must truly know of who you really are.

Perhaps he's seen only what he feels he needs to, perhaps he's played you for a fool just like every other pawn across the board, or maybe just maybe there's a part of him that's afraid of what you make him feel.

And all you can be sure of in these dark and lonely moments is that you're grateful he's alive. Even if it means you've become nothing more than a means to an end to him. If the last glance you have of him is one filled with anger and distain you can at least be grateful it's not of cold and certain death.

You rub the lack of sleep from your eyes and dress for the day. You know that crime will not sit quietly aside while you nurse your battered heart. You lift your gun and badge from the bedside drawer and set your rosary reluctantly back beneath your pillow. You fight the need to say one last prayer for him and end up cursing him instead.

Regardless, none of it matters anymore, because with or without him you still know who you are; you are the woman who stood beside him, the one who would always find a way to save him and more importantly you are the cop who killed Red John for him.


End file.
